The Woman Of Secrets
by Arasinyah
Summary: She couldn't imagine that conversation going well.'Hey Jane you know that paramilitary organisation you hate because they stole all your research? Well I work for them as an undercover agent'
1. Chapter 1

"Whoa who's the hottie?" Darcy muttered to Ian as they waited with the police.

They had watched as a tall blonde model type had driven up in a sleek black sports car and gone up to one of the officers. The two talked and eventually the officer pointed to them and with a smile at him the model type began walking up to Darcy and Ian.

"Hi, you must be Darcy." She said.

"Yes I am." Darcy said putting her hand out for a handshake, her eyes never leaving the mass of straight platinum blonde hair that tumbled down the new girl's shoulders right down to her elbows. "That is one hell of a blonde."

"Straight from the bottle too, had to dye it for a photo-shoot. Still, doesn't seem too bad does it?" The glamazon she had correctly categorised as a model lifted a strand and held it up to eye level and screwed up her mouth.

"You look like the Khaleesi." Her straight dark brows contrasted with her pale hair beautifully and Darcy remembered her own time being blonde and sighed, depressed. It had not gone well and she had had to hack her hair off to a short bob that she could not pull off. Well, she could but it only seemed to attract the really strange artistic types.

"That's probably the look they wanted. Too bad the bleach job doesn't come with a hunk of Dothraki Man Warrior." Model type waggled her eyebrows.

Darcy grinned like an idiot before shaking it off. "Wait umm, who exactly are you?"

"Oh sorry, I forgot to introduce myself, Alice Foster, Jane's little sister."

"Oh. Ohh you're here because she disappeared? Wow, these British police work fast, I didn't think they'd be calling her emergency contact so soon." It had only been four hours since Jane disappeared and even then only one hour since she'd actually called the police. Jane would have killed her if she got the authorities stomping over her discovery but four hours was four hours too long. "Hell, I didn't even know she had a sister."

Normally Darcy would have gotten suspicious that someone claiming to be Jane's sister was talking to them, she hadn't gotten her iPod back from SHIELD yet after all (those bastards) but this close she could see a lot of resemblance between Jane and Alice so she accepted it at face value. They had the same angled eyebrows and jaw line although Alice had a more upturned nose and her eyes were grey, not brown like Jane. She looked more like Jane's mother whom they had met a few weeks ago and by now Darcy was pretty sure she was Jane's sister. Besides, it wasn't like they were doing anything besides waiting.

"I've only flown in a few days ago or I would have caught up with you all. And I'm not exactly her emergency contact, I have a police friend and told her to call me if anything with Jane Foster came up. Of course I always thought it would be because she hit someone with her car not because she up and disappeared. I know she's here because of something Erik told her and given what happened on the news, I got worried.

"Yeah we don't let Jane drive anymore. Wait, what news?"

"Uhh, you haven't seen it?"

"Seen what?"

Alice took her phone out and within seconds Darcy and Ian huddled around it to see footage of a naked Erik running around Stonehenge with equipment that would probably fascinate Jane. The three who were actually watching it were far more interested in the naked man with a crazed look on his face.

An awkward silence followed.

"Well...That explains why Erik didn't pick up any of her calls."

Alice snorted. "Yeah, doesn't look like he had any place to put his mobile."

She was funny and the discovery delighted Darcy. She was definitely interning for the wrong Foster. Sure, working with Jane meant meeting Thor who was buff as hell (and realising aliens were real but after New York, everyone knew that) but Alice probably knew her own fair share of pretty boys with muscles.

"I still don't understand where Dr Foster went." The Intern looked at the building with a confused look. Darcy didn't blame him, in her long time with Jane she had also faced plenty of occasions in which questions that had no answers began popping up. It was very annoying and Darcy had given up trying to find the answer to them, she'd leave it to Jane and Erik. She was just glad she'd been bumped up from unpaid intern who needed credits to graduate to paid assistant who had graduated, it made retail therapy much easier.

"Well the keys did-" She stopped mid-sentence, not sure if telling Alice about the mysterious incident with the hole in space and gravity not working was a good idea. "That's why we're here I guess. I'm sure the police will find her."

"It looks like we'll be here for a while." Alice sighed and Ian looked at Darcy in askance.

"Yup." The three looked at one another before settling back, leaning against the now useless, keyless car.

"So," Alice started, "Want to watch funny cat videos on Youtube?"

Definitely working for the wrong sister.

* * *

Jane pulled the jacket closer around her. She felt...odd. Cold and hot all at the same time but not like she had a fever. Her insides felt warm but her skin felt cold and she rushed out the warehouse, unnerved by its emptiness. Where were Darcy, Ian and the kids?

Her heart sank as she took in the cars with their chequered blue and yellow silently cursing Darcy for calling the police. Darcy, who was coincidentally running towards her calling her name, sounding distressed.

"Jane!"

"Tell me you didn't call the cops." Jane said calm and cool hating that she sounded so harsh but unable to stop it either.

The last time a government agency had walked into her workspace they had seized all her equipment and her life time's work, her father's lifetime work as well and she couldn't bear the thought of that happening all over again.

"What was I supposed to do?" Darcy wasn't reacting the way Jane thought she would, she wasn't taking it lying down, she wasn't as chilled out as she usually was and alarm bells started ringing in her head but she continued on, relentless.

"Not call the police?"

"I was freaking out-"

"You call the cops, they call the feds, next thing you know we have SHIELD crawling all over Area 51-ing the place."

"Jane-"

"We had a stable gravitation anomaly. We had unimpeded access, our only competition was ten years old."

"Jane! You were gone for five hours."

"What?"

Before she could begin to comprehend the thought she saw a flash of blue in the corner of her eyes and before long found herself staring at her baby sister. Alice was clutching a blue umbrella with little ice cream cones all over it, the same one Jane had given to her for her first day of Kindergarten and she was overcome by the feeling of affection.

"What's wrong with your hair?!" Jane cried out even as she tugged her down for a hug.

"She spilled gorgeous all over it." Darcy replied instead. "When I went blonde I had to hack the whole thing off, so many split ends."

"Right? It is so hard to get a good colourist!" Alice commiserated before the smile, that had been nervous to begin with, fell away. She tucked away the umbrella and Jane realised quite suddenly that while it was pouring cats and dogs all around them, there was no rain anywhere near her. "So, you noticed the little force field you've got going on." Alice said shakily.

"But this...what's-?!" She couldn't wrap her head around it yet, especially as thunder rumbled and she chose to focus on the fact that her sister was here instead. "I thought you were in Tokyo! And aren't you eating anything, you look so thin!" Jane fussed smoothing a hand over Alice's brow, mentally cringing at how far up it was. Just her luck that she was the only short one in their family. Usually she didn't remember that as much since Darcy was around the same height as her but Alice always found a way to make her feel like a Lilliputian, the high heels she was wearing then only adding to it.

"I was, flew in when Mom called saying you were here. It took a while to get some free time, I had a backlog of assignments. And hello, you're one to talk, Mom tells me you eat nothing but ice cream these days."

"Oh right for the model-y thing."

Jane had never understood why her baby sister had gone into modelling. It had started as a way to pay off student loans but soon Alice had dropped out of law school to focus on her modelling career and it had rankled Jane.

"Yes the model-y thing," Alice said patiently and whipped her head around for a second. "Jane what happened? You disappeared for five hours, do you remember anything that happened? Or why this weird no rain over you thing is happening?"

"No I-," Jane looked around just as puzzled as her sister but certain that this was related to the strange red light in the stone and saw standing a bit away, Thor. His red cape fluttered lightly and she was struck dumb at the sight. She walked towards him as if pulled by a string. Behind her she heard vague squeals from Darcy and Alice and in the back of her mind the fact that the 'force field' had moved with her and suddenly drenched the two registered.

There were far too many reunions happening in this one day, she thought as she walked up to him, the anger of all the past two years suddenly at the forefront, compounded by the weird feeling in her body and the fact that her vision seemed to be tinged with a blue light.

"Jane-" Her name sounded so good from his lips but Jane was on a mission and without letting him continue her hand raised of its own accord, whipping across his cheek.

Damn but that felt good.


	2. Chapter 2

"What do you think they're talking about?" Alice asked Darcy as they watched Thor and Jane talk after the second slap.

Alice just could not catch a break. She hadn't even had time to recover from the jet lag when she got a call from Natasha saying that Jane was missing, then when she finally got to where Jane was last seen she turned up out of the blue only to have some weird voodoo force shield around her and then to top it all off, the Space Viking reappeared. Honestly, the man (alien?) had been nothing but trouble since the second he had fallen to Earth, every single thing that had gone wrong since then could be traced back to that very point and of course joy of all joys, her sister was dating that guy.

It was hard enough keeping Jane out of trouble, she could think back to several occasions when Jane's research had ended up nearly killing her. Hell Alice had grabbed her by the scruff of her shirt just as she was about to step into New York traffic once, lost in her radiation readings from after the Battle of New York. Now that the dude from the warrior community with a magic hammer was back into her life, it was going to be absolute hell keeping Jane out of trouble.

Then there was the fact that Jane still didn't know that Alice worked for SHIELD. She couldn't imagine that conversation going well.

'_Hey Jane you know that paramilitary organisation you hate because they stole all your research? Well I work for them as an undercover agent! And you know how they found Mjolnir when Thor first came to Earth so quickly and ended up taking all your equipment? That was because I asked a few agent friends who were working in New Mexico to keep an eye on you to make sure you stayed alive.'_

That would be just the icing on the cake that was this day. Jane might actually see modelling as a step up from working for SHIELD, that conversation was bound to be terrifying. And Alice just wasn't the kind of person who dealt with Jane being angry at her, she was the one person whose anger actually made her cry.

She and Darcy watched as the two got closer and closer with each word and then Thor's hand was all over Jane's neck and they were leaning in closer and closer just about to kiss.

"Yeah, no, that's not happening on my watch. Not while I'm standing here soaking wet and the cops have been questioning me about what I was doing trespassing on private property all while she was off who knows where." Darcy said and ran off to interrupt them. Alice knew she liked that girl for a reason and it wasn't just for her perfectly winged eyeliner either. "Hey is this you?" asked Darcy, gesturing at the pouring skies with her elbows. Her jacket held aloft over her head she interrupted their moment with no qualms, Alice close behind her.

She had wondered about that as well, having been briefed on Thor's 'abilities' by Agent Romanoff but it was Britain after all, when was it not raining? Abruptly the rain stopped and Darcy pulled the jacket she was holding over her head down around her shoulders and Alice put the small umbrella away.

"Umm we're kind of in the middle of something here." Jane said, gruffly. She must have really wanted to make out with him. Absently Alice thought that if she'd just listen to their mom take her advice and date more, Jane wouldn't be quite so frustrated.

"Umm I'm pretty sure we are getting arrested." Darcy said.

"Hold that thought." Jane told Thor and began to rush away before backtracking, "Oh and Alice this is Thor, Thor this is Alice, my sister." And then she ran away again leaving the two women with the apparent God of Thunder.

"I did not know you had one." He told her retreating back. Alice didn't think she even heard it.

"Look at you, still all muscly and everything." Darcy touched his armour."How's space?"

"Space is fine."

Alice stepped in closer to him, thanking her heels for giving her the height she needed, elevating her 5'7" height to a good 6 feet and she glared at him.

"So, you're the one who's in a pseudo relationship with my sister. And hasn't visited in well over a year."

"I am-"

"I've read the legends and the stories. I hope they aren't true because if they are, I will do everything in my power to break you two up. And I have a lot of power over Jane."

"She never mentioned you before." He stepped in closely, almost threatening and Alice snorted.

"Funny, I didn't think you got a lot of chance to talk in the three days you were here. I thought you spent most of that time breaking into secure facilities, or getting drunk with Erik, not exchanging heart warming stories about your personal lives."

"You-"

He was interrupted when a strange sound filled the air and they all were thrown back. Thor who had been facing the side Jane was on and seen what had happened had thrown himself in front of Darcy and Alice as a shield and they were unharmed but Jane lay on the ground, at the epicentre of the sudden wave of energy. Car alarms rang through the air as the their windows lay in shards all around them

"Jane?" Thor said rushing to her and crouched by her side. Darcy had stayed where she was while Alice was right behind Thor "Are you alright?"

"What just happened?" Thor helped her up by one side while Alice held her other, putting her arm around Jane's shoulders and under her opposite arm as support.

"Place your hands on your head and step back." The cop held out his hand in front of him, his body language at odds with his words.

"This woman is unwell." Thor said, tilting Jane's face to look at her.

"She's dangerous." The cop said and Thor seemed to get angry.

He, of course, had no idea that after the events in New York, the mere possibility of magic or anything that couldn't be seen, any hint of Otherness was now treated with a lot more caution and fear than usual.

"So am I." He said dramatically, the wind picking up out of nowhere and Alice wrapped my arm around her tighter. Jane could barely stand up and between what had just happened and the police being so aggressive Alice wouldn't have been surprised if she fainted.

"Requesting armed response officers to scene." The cop was properly terrified now.

"Hold on to me." Said Thor, apparently forgetting that Alice was there even as he pulled Jane close and her sister moved forward along with her.

"What are you doing?" Even Jane was confused but instead of answering her he turned to Alice.

"You might want to let go of her."

"Oh I'm not letting her out of my sight, not after what I just saw."

"I need to protect her."

"She's my _sister_, she has been mine to protect for longer than you have known of her existence." I growled out and understanding dawned on him that she was not going to let this go. "Where she goes, I go."

He looked up and she held on to Jane tighter, his other arm, the one clutching Mjolnir coming around her and she winced as the hammer dug into her shoulder. Under their feet red lines began to span out, seemingly burnt into the Earth, a rainbow hued light surrounded them and suddenly they were moving. There was no understanding of how or why but they were moving through Space with a capital 'S'. From behind the glowing rainbow light surrounding them they saw stars rushing past them glowing bright before finally they came to a halt, Thor guiding them so they stepped out and landed right on their feet.

"We have to do that again." Jane was smiling like Alice hadn't seen her do since back when their Dad was still alive and even though Thor was a Space Viking and dangerous, she knew she was going to let Jane continue on what to her seemed to be the long distance relationship from hell. If he made her sister that happy Alice didn't really think she could object much. But that didn't mean he was off the hook, he would still have to behave and prove himself capable of treating Jane right and at the moment when they were still strangers Alice simply couldn't trust him to do that. And then there was the fact that there was some strange power that had latched on to Jane that seemed not unlike magic. "Hi." Jane said and Alice noticed the man standing there with a sword in a machine.

That's how strange this place was, swords were being used to activate machines. Couldn't they just press a button or something?

"Welcome to Asgard." The man in the helmet said and smiled and Alice let out a silent curse upon realising where they were.

Fury was going to demand a really long report on this.


	3. Chapter 3

"Heimdall, we need to get Jane to the healers immediately, there is something wrong with her." Said Thor, his already loud voice booming in the silence, amplified by the shape of the observatory where they were standing. Heimdall stepped off the platform and walked towards them.

"I anticipated the need and called for a ship."

"Ship?" When Alice thought of ships she thought of giant hulking rickety tubs of metal. That and the Titanic which had sunk. The concept of transporting Jane who was still not feeling that well to a 'healer' in a ship did not appeal and it must have shown on her face as Heimdall smiled at her in response.

"A ship unlike any you've seen before Lady Alice."

"You know my name?"

"I have seen you upon occasion with Lady Jane although you did not know of it." She had had enough brushes with stalkers to know that that did not sound like a good thing.

"I have pepper spray in my pocket and I am not afraid to use it." Her hand was in her coat already and she felt for the little bottle, closing her fingers around it while her knuckles brushed the special gun Natasha had given her the day Erik's news of amazing readings had been surveilled. Admittedly though, she was actually a bit afraid to use it here. While she could count on the legal systems to take her side on Earth especially with SHIELD pressurising them, on Asgard she had no idea how this would be seen. As a hostile attack perhaps and she couldn't afford that, not while Jane was hurt and not while she didn't have a way of getting back home on her own. Besides which that would lead to Jane asking where she got the gun from and that was a question Alice wasn't ready to answer yet.

"And that's not all you have." He said knowingly and she gulped, her hand shifting from the pepper spray to the gun. "Ah the ship is here." He continued as a whooshing sound came from outside the observatory and he led them out through the other end of the Bifrost observatory which led onto a rainbow road, the motif repeating itself .Off to the side a ship was moored and as she drank in its sight Alice realised that he was right when he said it was a ship unlike anything she'd seen.

"You said ship but what you really meant was speedboat with wings."

"Do we have to take this? I mean isn't there a road we could take or-?" Jane looked at the ship nervously.

Jane was not fond of ships. The last time they'd gone sailing was on a yacht was when their mother's new boyfriend had taken the three women out on a 'bonding' trip where he then proposed and got turned down. Their mother and the boyfriend had then spent the rest of the time fighting while the ship was in open water and Jane had spent most of her time blowing chunks all over the side. Still it was strange that travelling via Bifrost left her almost euphoric while a ship made her sick.

"It would take too long to go to the Healers by road and time is short." Said Thor, holding out his hand for Jane to take. He helped her delicately get onto the speedboat with wings and Jane clung on to him a bit more than Alice would have liked but mentally she convinced herself it was fine. For all that it had been two years since they'd met each other it was still a pretty new relationship. As long as they didn't just start making out in front of her she'd be fine.

Alice however, didn't get any such help since the two were lost with each other and the boatman was busy at the control. Consequently she stumbled her way onto the floating speedboat, nearly falling down when it didn't sway under her weight like she expected it to and before they knew it we were off again.

The ship flew over the city of Asgard with all its golden spires and they caught a brief glimpse of the palace which looked not unlike golden pipes from a church organ, before turning into a valley. In the middle of it, there was a tall slim building with rounded edges and as the boat circled it, it became apparent that that was to be their destination.

"Is it just me or does that look like a golden dild-"

"Alice!" Said Jane and Alice held up her hands.

"I'm just saying."

"What? What does it look like?" Thor asked, confused and the two sisters exchanged glances.

"Nothing." They chorused as the boat moored itself along the side of the building and Thor led them at a brisk pace, rushing through halls before coming to a stop in front of a woman with brown hair, blue eyes and the look of a person who was used to dealing with idiots. Their mother often wore that exact same face.

"Eir, I am in need of your expertise." Thor said gravely before waving a hand in Jane's direction. "She is unwell."

Eir pulled an expression as if laughing and frowning at the same time.

"Not in the normal human way either, anytime anyone touches her in an aggressive way this weird energy bursts out of her." Alice added and as understanding dawned on Eir it seemed she had guessed at her reservations correctly.

Simply saying someone is unwell does not usually merit a journey to an unknown world after all.

"Come with me." They followed her to a room, dark except for the dim light of fiery brackets on the wall. It seemed utterly medieval and yet when Jane was asked to lie down on the weird machine in the middle of the room, strange glowing particles appeared in waving lines over her in something that seemed decidedly more hi-tech than anything Alice or Jane had ever seen.

Attendants scurried around to take notes on what they were seeing while one in particular stopped to stand beside Thor and Alice.

"What's that?" Jane said, lifting a hand, as always enthralled by technology.

"Be still." Eir chided, making adjustments in the glowing dust and a projection of Jane's body rimmed in the particles hovered over her. Thor, who had more experience with the device, had apparently come to some realisation and whispered to the assistant in a low voice so as not to scare Jane.

"This is not of Earth. What is it?"

"We do not know." Alice's head whipped towards the assistant at the tightly worded statement. "But she will not survive the amount of energy surging within her."

Even as Alice took a sharp breath she was confused. They did not know what it was and yet they somehow knew that the energy was destructive. How could they make such a conclusion? Most energies could be dispersed as per what meagre science Alice knew so what made this so different that it would destroy her and how had they guessed at the qualities of it without knowing it?

"That's a quantum field generator isn't it?" Said Jane in tones of rapture. Alice was certain she had forgotten about the weird thing in her, she was far more interested in this world they were suddenly in.

"It's a soul forge." Eir said.

"Does a soul forge transfer molecular energy from one place to another?" Jane replied, just as snobbish and they had the pleasure of seeing Eir surprised.

"Yes."

Jane nodded knowingly. "Quantum Field Generator."

"My words are mere noises to you that you ignore them completely?"A new voice joined them and Alice stepped in closer to Jane on the table sensing that some drama was about to occur given the way Thor was looming and yet waited as if powerless. The man himself in question wore a golden eye-patch and her time spent studying the myths since the events in New Mexico meant that Alice had inkling that the person who was talking was Odin, the King of Gods.

She always thought he'd be taller though.

"She is ill."

"She is mortal." He waved a hand and the soul forge was back to a simple bed with strange bedposts. "Illness is their defining trait."

And that was the father of the man Jane was dating. Still there had been worse 'Meet the Parents' scenarios.

"I brought her here because we can help her."

"She does not belong here in Asgard anymore than a goat belongs at a banquet table."

"Did he just-?" Jane started saying at Thor who looked at her apologetically and Alice winced. Apparently Jane had not noticed that all the healers were standing away with their heads bowed and that they were quite obviously in the presence of the King of Asgard. "Who do you think you are?" She said indignant.

It was just like Jane to be so completely unaware of people.

"I am Odin King of Asgard, protector of the Nine realms."

"Oh." Jane said and before she could get herself into anymore trouble Alice decided to take the attention off her.

"I hope Earth isn't in one of the Nine Realms you're supposed to be protecting. Wouldn't want a carnivore to protect the, what was it? Oh yes, 'Goats at a banquet table'."

Odin looked at her with distaste his eyes roaming over her clearly Earthy attire and his lip curled.

"Another human? Thor your dalliances are growing-"

"I'm not his dalliance, I'm Jane's sister. I thought it best not to let her go into a different world alone and it is quite obvious that I was right."

Odin's eye seemed to glaze over, he was looking at her but not really looking at her.

"Not another one." He whispered and if it wasn't for the training Natasha had given her in lip reading Alice wouldn't have realised that was what he said but before she could ask what he meant Jane chimed in, adamant on introducing herself. Fearless, brave and as always stupid.

"I'm -"

"I know who you are. Jane Foster."

And Jane being Jane chose to focus on the bit where Thor's Dad knew about her, not realising that it also meant that the King of Asgard and apparent Protector of the Nine Realms knew of her and didn't approve. "You told you Dad about me?"

"Something is within her father, something I have not seen before." Thor continued and Alice sat down on the bed next to Jane in silent solidarity.

"Her world has its healers. They are called doctors, let them deal with it. Guards take them back to Midgard."

Two guards appeared from the other entrance, the one no one was watching because Odin was pulling their attention and made to manhandle Jane.

"No I would not-" Thor was cut off as the same energy they had seen on Earth surged through throwing the guards back a good few paces along with Alice and Jane fell back onto the forge bed in a boneless heap. "-touch her. Jane are you alright?"

She nodded, unable to say much and Odin strode forward putting out his hand and pulling it parallel over her arm. Strange glowing red lights appeared to be under her skin and his voice that had been so arrogant, so angry was now subdued.

"It's impossible."

"The infection, it's defending her." Eir said.

"No. It's defending itself." Thor guessed.

"Come with me."

The ship took them to the palace and they walked for what felt like ages, going deeper and deeper under the castle until finally they stood before a pair of tall heavy doors that had begun opening just as they turned the corner.

The room they entered was strange to say the least, it didn't have the same gold walls that frequented Asgard but instead were green and brown with runes etched into them. A tree stood in the middle and women in the same uniform as Eir and her attendants walked around its base taking notes while men in armour stood in the few beams of light shining through the ceiling as if praying. Alice looked up and realised that it wasn't a ceiling at all, they were standing in the canopy of the tree, which was vast beyond what she'd expected and the light wasn't coming through the ceiling at all, instead it came from the branches of the tree that seemed to hold galaxies in them, complete with stars and swirls and things that Jane was far better suited to recognise than Alice.

They went through the room and into another one, this one as golden as the rest of Asgard. Thor and Odin who had stopped breathing near the tree were suddenly very relieved. Odin took a book down from the shelves lining the walls and as he opened it up he recited the words written in them which were nothing more than illegible artistic scratches to her and Jane even though the pictures moved.

"There are relics that pre-date the universe itself." Odin said. "What lies within her appears to be one of them. The Nine Realms are not eternal. They had a dawn as they will have a dusk. But before that dawn the dark forces, the Dark Elves reigned absolute and unchallenged."

"Born of eternal night, the Dark Elves come to steal away the light." Thor read and Alice wished Odin was narrating instead. She didn't like the Allfather but he had a sense of grandeur that better suited these words. "I know these stories, Mother told them to us as children."

It was the 'us' in that sentence that caught Alice's attention and she remembered that Thor was Loki's brother. Loki, as in the guy who had tried to take over the world and it was hard to reconcile the image of the man in the golden helmet with what Thor made sound like little children who were told stories by their mother just like their Dad would tell Jane and her about the Big Bang.

"Their leader Malekith made a weapon out of that darkness and it was called the Aether." Jane edged closer to the book to see what was in it while Alice remained where she was. "While the other relics often appear as stones, the Aether is fluid and every changing. It changes matter into dark matter. It seeks out host bodies, drawing strength from their life source. Malekith sought to use the Aether's power to return the Universe into that of darkness. But after eternities of bloodshed my father Bor finally triumphed ushering in a peace that lasted thousands of years." He gestured proudly at the book and its contents as if completely ignoring the fact that the people in the room did not give a damn about his Father's accomplishments, all they wanted was to know was how to get the damned thing out of Jane.

"What happened?" Jane asked.

"He killed them all."

"Are you certain?" Thor asked. "The Aether was said to have been destroyed with them and yet here it is."

"The Dark Elves are dead."

"Does your book happen to mention how to get it out of me?" Jane asked, the vein in her forehead throbbing wildly.

"No. It does not." Odin said and turned to leave.

"Are you sure?" Alice asked. "Because there seem to be plenty of things you've been wrong about and if this is your way of polishing the goat off the banquet table, then..." She trailed off.

Odin paused and turned to her with a twitch in his lip that was almost a snarl. "What need have I to kill her Alice Foster? She'd be dead in a few decades anyway, even without the Aether. Compared to the thousands of years we will live it's a pittance."

With that parting shot he swept away.


	4. Chapter 4

Contrary to popular opinion Jane Foster wasn't completely unaware of people, she just didn't care enough about them to try not to offend them, not unless there was something in it for her. Being a female scientist in a male dominated field meant dealing with a lot of misogynists who had a tendency to dismiss her and guiding herself through those circles she had learnt that the best way to deal with them was to be as brusque, uncaring and generally offensive as possible. Her treatment of Darcy often left people aghast but she knew Darcy could take it and would give it back in spades. Their relationship was even more complicated than the one she had with Thor all stemming from one particular incident at a McDonald's after Donald and she had broken up, an incident that they both denied ever happening.

There were the other female scientists of course who were, to be completely honest, terrifying. But she was not one of them, for all that Jane tried hard to do so she just could not intimidate anyone. It was one of the things she envied of Alice, her sister's ability to cow people twice her size was commendable.

If only she didn't have the court mandated anger management to thank for that.

Still, the fact remained she wasn't unaware. So she had noticed that Thor was uncharacteristically worried, she had noticed that while Odin was dismissing her he was also very wary and she had most definitely noticed that Alice was hiding something from her. Jane hadn't missed what Heimdall had said about Alice having more than just pepper spray in her pocket and if it weren't for the brief worried glance Alice flicked at her she would have dismissed it entirely. But that _had_ happened and so it became obvious that Alice was hiding something. Then there was the way she kept on looking everywhere, her sister had been the curious type but she was looking for exits and entries in particular and angled herself to face at least one such opening. It spoke of a paranoia the likes of which was uncharacteristic to Alice.

The mood had gone significantly down since they had found there was no way to remove the Aether from her. Both Thor and Alice had put on fake smiles and assured her they'd find a way to make it right but it was obviously weighing down on them as they watched her like a ticking bomb, Thor a bit more quiet than usual, almost whispering and Alice joking incessantly, clearly nervous.

Jane had remained hopeful though and for more reason than one.

Firstly, even if she died, she had travelled via an Einstein-Rosen Bridge, at least her bucket list that consisted of just this one item was complete. Secondly she was there with two of her favourite people in the world although it might have perhaps been a bit better if Erik, Darcy and her Mom were there as well. Thirdly she was on a world that was more technologically advanced than anything she'd seen so far and the research opportunities were stunning, even if she died she would be leaving behind a legacy unlike any before, no humans had been on Asgard before. And then there was the fourth, most important thing of them all.

She knew that Odin had lied. She knew that Malekith was alive.

Odin had said a lot about the Aether being a weapon, about it being fluid, about it turning matter to Dark Matter. What he had not told, or perhaps he didn't even know (she couldn't even try to pretend not to get a sick sense of satisfaction over that) was that the Aether was alive, it was sentient and it was talking to her.

'_Lies_," It had whispered when Odin said all Dark Elves were dead, "_Malekith lives, he has been awakened and he comes for us, pet._" It said in sibilant tones and the blue tinge to her vision grew before diminishing again, terrifying but soothing her nonetheless.

She'd come out of this alive. She didn't why she was so certain about it but she was. It was like the time before Thor had landed on her research, when she'd first seen the 'slight Aurora' and known in her bones that there was something more than just shifts in air particles there. Like when her Dad had shown her the stars and she'd known one day she'd be among them, she'd see them for herself and not just through pictures in her books either. She knew she would live through this.

She just hoped there'd still be a world left to live in as well. Her gut was suspiciously silent on this, and with the convergence occurring and Malekith being awakened she was afraid for it.

For now though, there was a Bifrost to observe.

"Thor, can we go to the observatory? I was wondering if I could ask Heimdall about the Bifrost's mechanism."

"Now? It's rather late isn't it?" The sun had set a long time ago and even though Jane was feeling tired, as if she had a fever, she still felt the buzz of travelling by the Bifrost. "You should eat and take some rest, it has been twice today that I have seen you lose all strength and fall to the ground. Are you certain you feel well enough for the walk?"

He asked. He didn't demand and she knew he had it in him to just outright tell her no and she would have to listen. Here he was a beloved Prince and she was just a mortal scientist. His father was king and he didn't even like her, by all rights Thor should have just told her no but he didn't. It was a change for her, all the men in her life seemed to tell her what she needed to do, tell her how to behave, how she was fixating on the all wrong thing in her research. And Jane was certain that Thor, for all that he was supposed to be the jock, still knew more about the world than she did.

That night when they'd stayed up back in Puente Antiguo and he'd told her about the World Tree, the Nine Realms and the Bifrost, he may have used different terms but what he had described was interplanetary travel, wormholes, his hammer forged in the heart of a dying star, literally using the heat of the star as a furnace and the reactions to change the molecular structure of the metal, there was so much that he knew, that he could tell her. And he did tell her but even then he didn't belittle her comparative lack of knowledge, he never patronised her. When he talked to her about space it was so personal like the universe was a living being and they were all simple cogs in its machinations and she was in love with that.

"I'm fine, I just really want to _know_."

"Then we shall leave immediately." He said with a smile and looked down at her.

He was leaning in for a kiss when Jane realised she suddenly understood Darcy's Romantic theory of Time Relativity. As short as she was and as tall as he was, the space between them was not so huge that it should take such a long time for his mouth to come down upon hers, surely they should be frenching by now?

They didn't. A throat being cleared interrupted them and they pulled away to look at Alice who stood off at the side.

"You forgot all about me didn't you?"

"Yes."

"No." Thor and Jane said simultaneously and Alice took a deep breath looking suspiciously like a dragon.

"Lady Alice, would you also like to join us at the Bifrost observatory?"

"I don't really want to leave you two alone but I figure Jane's going to be more distracted by the science and the Einstein-Rosen bridge than you so I'm fine with it." Jane was pretty sure that was going to happen too. But the Observatory was a long way away and they'd have time to 'talk' till they reached it. "I'd rather hang out here and figure some things out if you don't mind. Maybe get to know Asgard a bit more."

"Of course, though it might be better if you were dressed differently. People might not take too fondly to a Midgardian in our midst."

"But then Jane-"

"Will be safe, no one would dare harm her while she is with me."

"Riiight."

"I'll be fine don't worry about me." But perhaps Jane should worry about her. "But will you be alright, I mean it's a big city in a...different world?"

"I'll be fine, it's not the first time I've been alone in a new city."

"Yes but...you do end up offending people a lot."

"I only offend them because I want to. And by now I know how to push people's buttons just right so they can't really blame me for being offended."

Jane turned to Thor. "Maybe we should stay here."

"Nah don't worry about me. Really, I'm just curious."

"Promise you won't offend anyone."

"I will try my best to be polite and not offend anyone."

"I won't get anything more than that will I?"

"No. Besides you've pissed off way more people than I have. Anyway I'm just going to stick to the palace, check out the architecture."

Alice was being weird again. Sicec when was she interested more in architecture than people? And why did Jane get the feeling she was filing away everything she saw methodically? Alice was looking at Asgard the way she'd looked at her Algebra homework. She was studying it and Jane didn't know why.

"I shall have someone help you get dressed." Thor looked around caught a woman's eye and she came scurrying forward, almost tripping over themselves. She was gorgeous, her gown cut down to there and Thor's eye didn't drift once. It made Jane feel a bit better.

At least she knew he wasn't a boob man. That was good because she didn't really much going on in that area. Or any area, really. She hoped he was a legs kind of guy, Jane had decent legs.

He said a few words to the woman about helping Alice and with a nod she left, leading her sister away with her and they were alone, finally.

"So, shall we?" His elbow was held out for her to take and Jane allowed herself one moment of swooning before girding herself again.

Einstein-Rosen bridge. Bifrost. All seeing Aesir who could give her answers to questions pertaining to a lifetime's worth of research.

Oh she loved this Realm.

* * *

Alice paced the length of the hallway. She ducked behind a pillar when a convoy of soldiers passed by and reached for the little gun for comfort only to swear in her mind as her hand touched silk instead. The blasted Asgardian gowns didn't have any pockets and the woman Thor had asked to help her had been far too thorough in her job, even standing there as she got dressed and she couldn't get the little holster and gun out of her coat without raising too many questions.

She was alone, pacing in front of the Queen's chamber in the palace, a restricted part of it in fact and she was unarmed. It did not bode well for her. She peered around the round pillar waiting for the guards to go out of view and when she couldn't see them any more sagged in relief.

"Were you ever going to come in?"

Alice jolted, jumping two feet into the air as the voice sounded and pressed her back against the pillar, trying to calm her heart. The woman who had surprised her raised an eyebrow and smiled.

"People usually don't manage to sneak up on me."

"People don't usually escape the notice of the Einherjar either."

"I think we've both established we're exceptional then."

"Indeed. Were you looking for me Lady Alice?"

"If you're Frigga, Queen of Asgard also known as the Allmother, then yes. If not then no. But in both cases, why do you know my name?"

"My husband told me about the presence of Midgardians. Since Thor isn't shadowing you, I assume you are not Jane Foster."

"Your husband?"

"The Allfather."

"So you _are_ Frigga."

"Yes. Would you rather we talk in my chambers?"

"If you wouldn't mind." Alice followed the Queen into the room, the heavy doors opening with a snap of Frigga's fingers. She looked around the golden room with its opulent silks carefully, noting the open window as the only escape. "The Allfather isn't here is he?"

"You are not fond of my husband, I gather."

Alice shrugged. "I don't like anyone who judges the value of a life by its quantity rather than its quality." She eyed the Queen and wondered if she should complete that thought.

"You may be free with your words Alice Foster." Frigga permitted with a knowing smile. She would have to add mind reader to the list of skills Frigga had along with creepy stealth and magic.

"It's just that in most cases the people who usually do that, they don't really lead the most fulfilling of lives. I'm not fond of your husband but I do pity him. What a sad, sad person he must be."

Frigga paused. "That was...a little more freedom with words than I expected. Well Lady Alice, I doubt you asked for an audience with me just to discuss my husband."

"No I didn't." Alice leaned forward, her fingers laced together under her chin. "Thor said you were the one to tell them the stories of the Dark Elves."

"Yes."

"Well I was wondering if you knew anything about getting the Aether out of my sister."

"I am afraid the books do not tell of any such thing and I was not yet born when the battle with the Dark Elves occurred. "

"And all the dark elves were killed? There weren't any kept as, oh I don't know, prisoners of war or anything? Maybe raised with Odin as his brother if that's a family tradition?"

"You mock my husband's decision to take Loki as his own?"

"No I'm wondering if there's any prize of war that still exist and might help me save my sister's life. I don't really care what your husband does as long as it doesn't affect me in any way."

"Pragmatic. I am afraid no such prize exists." Frigga said and Alice's face fell. She'd been hoping for something, anything that might even lead her to clue. "But I would not be so certain that there are no Dark Elves left."

"Wait, what? Why?"

"The libraries in Vanaheim where I studied make no mention of Malekith's death only of his disappearance. They also say Malekith tied his soul to the Aether. It was more than a weapon it was his triumph over light, it responds to him like none other."

"So it's the One Ring to his Sauron, okay I get it."

"I don't know what you mean but it stands to believe that if the Aether still exists, then he must as well in some form or another. And his body was certainly never found in the many carcasses, otherwise it would not have been swept away and lumped in with the rest."

"So Malekith might be alive. And the Convergence is happening. And the Aether's been found and apparently it is tied to him. Stand to reason then that wherever Malekith is, he is aware of it?"

"I would certainly speculate it to be so."

"Well if he is, then he won't be very happy to know that it's on Asgard will he?"

"No, he will come for it." Frigga frowned. "And destroy anything that stands between him and the Aether."

"So we play the waiting game, alright."

"Should we prepare for battle?" Frigga teased but Alice simply frowned.

"I had to go through twenty three open passages to get here, from every single one I saw people training for fights and sparring, pretty sure you're already prepared for battle."

"Perhaps once Lady Jane is feeling well enough you might try the libraries in Vanaheim, they were more prone to recording details than the scribes of Asgard."

"Hopefully. Thank you for telling me all this." Alice turned to leave but stopped and turned abruptly. She opened and closed her mouth several times before shaking her head and plowing on. It was a silly, stupid thought really and didn't make any sense but she had to ask. "I don't suppose Loki would happen to know anything about this?"

"I cannot be sure. When he fell into the Void he made new...acquaintances. What he learnt from them is a mystery to me."

"These would be the same acquaintances who gave him the sceptre would they?"

"Yes, the Mind Gem. I believe it resides on Midgard now. Whatever happened to it?"

"There're people studying it but no one else has managed to use it to control any minds yet." Alice said flippantly, biting her thumb nail lost in her thoughts.

"And you know of this?"

"Well yeah I-"

Alice realised then how much of her own knowledge she had ended up revealing. Why would a normal person know that Loki had a sceptre that he'd used to control people's minds, let alone that people were studying its powers?

"I'll be leaving then, need to catch some z's." She grinned hoping against hope that Frigga wouldn't stop to ask her things and practically ran out of there.

Natasha was going to be so disappointed in her.


	5. Chapter 5

"My friends!" Thor cried out as he approached the alcove where Sif, Volstagg and Fandral sat, still in their battle armour having clearly returned from battle. "You have returned."

"Did you ever doubt us?" Sif said playfully and the back of his neck prickled as if someone was staring at him murderous intent. He would have thought it to be Jane but he could still hear her faint voice a few feet away, talking about the mechanics of the floating ships.

"No of course not." He cleared his throat and turned around pulling Jane forward and she looked away from the schematics in her hand. "My friends this is Lady Jane Foster of Midgard, Jane Foster, my friends."

"Hi, it's nice to meet you." She stuck her palm out for a handshake and instead Fandral raised it to his lips to kiss ignoring Thor's growl.

"So this is why Thor keeps on disappearing every night." Fandral said teasingly.

"Excuse me?"

"Thor has been making visits to Heimdall every day he is on Asgard." Sif said a bit colder than she had been with Thor but not enough that Jane would notice. "Midgard had caught his attention."

"And who might you be milady?" Fandral addressed his words to somewhere behind them and Alice stepped forward. She turned to Thor with a smile and yet her eyes narrowed at him and Thor stepped closer to Jane.

He wasn't afraid of this mortal woman but it would not do well to be on her bad side as well. He had seen how Jane considered her to be important and the bad impression he had created by being away for two years (again, for perfectly legitimate reasons) needed to be dispelled. And apparently, while Jane was unaffected by his friendship with Sif, Lady Alice was not.

"I'm Alice, Jane's sister."

"I'm Fan-"

"I know who you all are." She said curtly with a thin sharp smile.

"Do you? Does Thor talk so much about us milady?" Volstagg said with a hearty laugh.

"No, he hasn't mentioned you at all. But the minute you stepped on Asgard people started talking and gossiping about you. I've heard the most amusing things. Although some of them were not that amusing." Her eyes flitted to Sif whose face hardened in response.

"In the habit of eavesdropping?" Sif said with a cat like smile. Thor had forgotten that she was actually a woman and knew how to fight by _those_ rules as well.

'_Every woman has her claws'_ as Loki had told him once and he pushed down the pang that came with remembering his brother.

"In the habit of being the topic of a million rumours?" Responded Alice with a sweet smile and Thor saw Sif's hand curl around into a fist.

"Alice, be nice." Jane said chidingly and her sister stepped back while Jane smiled at Sif. "I'm sorry about her. It's been a...long two days."

"And when she says long she means shit. It has been a shit day and I'm pretty sure it's only going to get worse. Like, balls deep up shit creek without a paddle kind of worse." Alice muttered and the company jolted. It was odd to hear such crude words leaving the mouth of someone who looked like a lady of the court. Jane still stood out with her lack of adornments even though she was in an Asgardian gown but her sister actually managed to fit in quite well. She was already quite tall and with the blonde hair pulled up with braids she had been mistaken for a lady visiting from Vanaheim on many occasions as they had walked through the markets, especially since she chose to wear the armour that Jane had found too cumbersome. When she'd opened her mouth though, those assumptions crumbled and a fair few had been left gaping at the sudden turn of events that had followed. She looked pretty as a picture but spewed crass words so casually a fair few war hardened soldiers would have been left shocked.

"Language!" Said Jane with all the frustration of an older sibling and Alice simply turned to her with a grin.

"Cockwomble."

"Alice!"

"Penis!"

"I am not talking to you."

"I will say penis over and over again until you talk to me."

"I will talk to you." Thor couldn't help but smile at this display. It hadn't been unusual for him to bother Loki while he studied or for Loki to bother him while he was practising with the sword. There were many things about Jane that he did not understand because he was from Asgard but this he understood, this he ached for.

"Ha!"

"You are so annoying." Alice shrugged.

"It is my birthright as your sibling, to annoy you for all of eternity." Alice paused. "Oh and by the way peeeeenis."

"Well this is strangely familiar." Fandral said, sharing Thor's thoughts and as if one the Warriors Three sans one Hogun and Sif turned to look at Thor while the two sisters exchanged glances.

"Well I'm sure you are strangely familiar with penises." Alice said understandingly and winked while Fandral spluttered.

"I am not-, my interest lies solely with you today milady." He smouldered at her and Alice blinked, unaffected.

"Sure it does." She drawled.

"My friends we shall take our leave of you, I wished to discuss certain things with Jane." Thor said, taking Jane's hand in his delicately and looked to Fandral with a plea and the blonde man stepped away from the pillar he was leaning against to face Alice.

"Of course. Lady Alice, how much have you seen of Asgard?"

"Not a lot I'm afraid."

"We shall have to rectify that immediately, our golden city has much to offer. Would you like to take a tour milady?"

"Sure why not." Alice agreed and Thor felt relief flooding through him. Finally he'd get a moment to talk to Jane in peace.

"We shall leave you to it then." He said and quickly, before Alice could change her mind he walked away with Jane's arm tucked into the crook of his elbow. Just as they were a few yards away he turned back to look at their company.

Alice narrowed her eyes at him and Thor looked away, awkward. He recognised that look; Loki would throw it at Sif when in years past she had been more obvious with her affections for Thor. It was the over protective 'You are not worthy' look and in all his life Thro had never faced this expression himself. The young maidens he had courted in his youth had faced this scrutiny but never him. Thor was crown prince f the Aesir, wielder of the Mjolnir, brave beyond compare and yet deemed unworthy by a mortal. Midgardians were an odd folk.

He turned back for a brief second again, feeling the prickle on the back of his neck and Alice jabbed two fingers at her eyes before pointing to him and he read the threat in it.

'I'm watching you.' It said and he worked on putting as much distance between them and her as he could finally relaxing when they stopped at an alcove leading to the palace, looking out on a curved inlet.

"What's the rush? We've got time. Well actually we don't I'm pretty sure your Dad is looking for a safe way to evict me without the Aether killing people but still." Jane said wryly, a little smile edging on her lips.

"I was anxious to have you all to myself Jane Foster. Your sister doesn't like me."

"She's overprotective. I can't really blame her; she's worried that this might turn toxic." Jane said flippantly as if a grave insult hadn't been made to Thor's honour and he frowned.

"She doesn't even know me but she makes such assumptions?"

"It's not just you, she's suspicious of all people in general. Even Donald although that's not really the best comparison to make considering he turned out to be a cheating asshole." She shook her head and tuned to him with a sad smile. "Her friend was in an abusive relationship, it was pretty bad and then it got worse."

"What happened?"

"She tried to leave. He killed her." Jane said in a voice far too controlled and causal and that belied her concern as her eyes looked to a point beyond his shoulder.

With those words Thor's aggravation melted away into sympathy. His mother had lost a sister to such circumstances when he had been very young and he still remembered those days. Frigga had cried for days, worn the colours of mourning for a whole century and there had been many days when she'd been quite and withdrawn and wondered if there was something she had missed, some sign she had failed to notice, some words she hadn't said that could have prevented the tragedy.

"I'm sorry."

"It was rough. Alice blamed herself for not noticing earlier just like the girl's parents did and since then she's been more careful about such things. Watches people more closely than usual."

"I suppose her caution is well meaning then."

"Everything she does is well meaning." Thor found himself fascinated by the utter conviction in Jane's voice. Even when he had defended Loki against all those who would have called him a coward he had never been so convinced as Jane was. Her utter faith in her sister made him wistful for a simpler time. "So, tell me more about this Convergence I hear about?"

Thor smiled, glad for the distraction. He knew a good way of explaining that. He took her hand in his, splaying out the fingers pressing palm to palm.

"The Nine Realms travel within Yggdrasil-"

* * *

"So shall we?"

Alice whipped her head around, all semblance of laughter and joking gone. For a moment she had the same glint in her eyes that Sif got during battle and Fandral stepped back while Sif and Volstagg looked on in astonishment.

Sif was surprised to say the least. To be honest though, she had been in this perpetual state of surprise ever since she found out that Thro had chosen a mortal woman to court. He hadn't even looked at another woman in the two years since he'd met Jane Foster and that had never happened before. He had a roaming eye that almost surpassed Fandral's and had never been so faithful to anyone at all, let alone a mortal he had met and spent all of three days with.

And to come back home, expecting a feast only to find that Thor had brought two Midgardians to Asgard was shocking and disappointing if she admitted it to herself.

"No, I was lying. I have no intention of touring Asgard, my priority is Jane right now and I'm not letting her leave my sight." Alice Foster said and Sif was intrigued by the tension that had taken up residence in the girl since her sister had left. She stood taller, her words were more clipped and she held herself as if waiting for an attack, a coiled spring.

"Well that's a bit hard to do when they're away isn't it?" Sif scoffed.

"You make it sound like I have no intentions to follow them. And that brings me to my second point, stop flirting with Thor."

"I am not flirting with Thor." Sif was simply...making sure that Thor was aware that she was there for him if he ever needed her that was all.

"Oh please, you were leaning in putting your hands on his arm but not leaving it there so it definitely wasn't friendly and don't think I didn't see you toss your hair back, you were flirting and I won't stand for it. If they end up breaking up and God how I hope they do, it'll be on their own merits not because you decided to come in like a wrecking ball, now if you'll excuse me or even if you won't, I have a couple to spy on." The other mortal bared her teeth in a crude smile and left in a flurry of silk following Thor and Jane and for a brief moment as her skirt flew around her Sif thought she caught a glint of metal.

"Well that was an interesting turn of events. What exactly is a wrecking ball?" Volstagg wondered out loud and Sif scoffed, eyes on Thor's pale head, as it leaned close to the dark one growing smaller and smaller.

"Clearly it is a ball that wrecks." Fandral answered.

"Yes but how does it wreck? And what does it wreck?" Volstagg wondered.

"The Midgardians, it seems, are here to stay." Sif said as Jane and Thor disappeared from sight and so did their mortal shadow. "We'll end up learning sometime soon, I wager."


	6. Chapter 6

Her first hint that something was terribly wrong was the alarms ringing through the city and sudden mobilisation of the many troops that Asgard had. Alice quickened her pace moving from her vantage point to where Jane and Thro had met up with Frigga. She had just reached the terrace, pushing through two women who were standing there talking when Thor ran out and took a running leap off the edge, his hammer coming to his hand.

"Alice!" Jane cried out and she picked up her skirts and ran down the stairs to where her sister and Frigga were standing. "There's something wrong at the prisons."

"Prisons? As in where they're holding Loki, the guy who tried to take over the world kind of prison?"

"Yes that prison." Frigga said in an amused tone before losing all semblance of smile. "Quickly now, come on." She said and led them into the labyrinth of passages that Alice had lost herself in the night before. Somehow after only a few turns they found themselves walking up to Odin who was shouting out orders. "Odin." She said softly and the same man that both the Fosters had thought to be a cold heartless bastard, softened immediately.

"Frigga. Go." He said harshly to the soldiers who nodded and obeyed. "It's a skirmish, nothing to fear." He was downplaying the events fantastically and everyone knew that, Frigga smiling knowingly at Odin.

"You've never been a very good liar." She teased just as Sif went by with a squadron of Einherjar. Jane and she shared a glance before her eyes flicked towards Alice who winked in response and blew her a kiss and an aggravated Sif turned away.

"Take her to your chambers. I'll come for you when it's safe."

"You take care." Frigga said with all the calm of a woman who had seen her husband go into war many times. Alice supposed it happened when you lived thousands of years but it was still a concept that needed some processing.

"Despite all I have survived," Odin raised a hand tenderly to Frigg's cheek, "My Queen still worries over me." He turned to leave before the words had left his mouth but Frigga wouldn't let him have the last word.

"It is only because I worry over you that you have survived." With one last roll of eyes Frigga led them away turning to Jane conspiratorially. "Listen to me now. I need you to do everything I ask, no questions."

"Yes Ma'am."

They walked down many halls before reaching the same set of door Alice had paced in front of just last night.

"It's not a skirmish, it's Malekith." Alice said and to her surprise Jane answered.

"He's on his way to Asgard right now, probably reaching Heimdall's observatory." When the two blondes shot her a surprised look she coloured. "The...Aether's been talking."

"Damn, I was hoping we'd have a bit more time."

"This is more of a warning than anyone expected." Frigga said, directing them into her chambers and snapping her fingers. Suddenly there was a second Jane standing there and Frigga waved a hand over the illusion and it turned more real, stopped flickering. "No matter what, don't come out." She told Jane who gasped as her eyes turned black and blue.

"Malekith, he's here. He's close." She said as if in a trance and Frigga turned to Alice who nodded. She dragged Jane away before pulling her skirt up to her thigh and Jane blinked furiously in surprise and noticed that she was wearing her leggings under the dress as well as two holsters. Alice took out a knife and ripped the bottom foe the dress off and from one of the holsters took out a small metallic cylinder. She twisted it and it extended into a baton and she handed that to Jane who looked at it, confused.

"What the hell?"

"Jane, think of it as a lever. You use it to maximise the centrifugal force from a swing okay?"

"Okay, okay, lever, so that makes one hand the fulcrum, the other the effort and the resistance is whatever I'm hitting." Jane adjusted her hands and found a workable grip and looked up to Alice only to see her holding an odd gun in her hand.

Alice pulled out the barrel to extend it and turned the handle on the other hand. It looked more like a nerf gun that had been painted black but as it lit up with a blue light Jane was certain it was anything but.

"Alice what the hell is that?!"

"Say hello to my little friend. I hang out with you so often I was given a Tesseract based gun. They were pretty sure that I'd come across some aliens that needed ass-kicking and form earlier fights it was obvious our normal bullets weren't cutting it."

"They?!"

"Oh yes I forgot to mention that didn't I. See I kind of work for SHIELD."

"What the –"Jane shut up as the doors were thrown open. Form where they were standing behind the pillar Jane and Alice watched as the illusion Jane cowered. Frigga rose and circled around while the real Jane huffed and whispered in Alice's ear. "I'm not that much of a wuss."

"That would be more believable if we weren't hiding behind a pillar."

"Stand down creature." Frigga said with such utter gumption they were hard pressed not to swoon, "And you may still survive this."

"Dude, if you and Thor ever have children they will have the coolest grandmothers ever!"

"I have survived worse, woman." Malekith said and the tone of arrogance with which he said woman had every person in the room that wasn't a dark elf seething.

"Who are you?" asked Frigga, still causal and so relaxed.

"She's stalling for time." Alice whispered. "Odin will have realised by now."

"Shouldn't we do something?"

"She specifically said stay out of sight. And I can't do anything until I get this gun fired up, it's taking too long to fully charge."

The sound of metal meeting metal began ringing through the chambers and the two girls tensed behind the pillar. Jane peeked out while Alice practically bounced on her toes with impatience waiting for the gun to load.

"Come on, come on!"

The sounds of clanging swords had stopped and they both looked to see Frigga being held aloft by a giant creature with a horned helmet and red lines running through him. Malekith meanwhile advanced on illusion Jane

"You have taken something, child. Give it back." He raised a hand to the illusion but his hand passed through it and Malekith shook with anger turning around to Frigga who smiled defiantly, even as she struggled in the horned man's hold. "Witch!"

The horned man's arm came around her neck and held her tightly while Malekith advanced on them.

"Where's the Aether?"

"I'll never tell you."

"I believe you." Malekith said with finality to his voice that terrified the two.

"It's charged!" Alice said excitedly and pushing Jane back came out form where they were hidden. They turned to her and just in time too as the horned man began sinking his sword into Frigga she fired it off, the impact throwing him off the edge of the terrace while the recoil sent Alice reeling back several feet, her back hitting a golden pillar hard. Frigga fell to the ground.

"No!" The cry came from Thor and a lightning bolt flew from his hammer onto Malekith's face and he fell, stumbling hard but regaining himself enough to leap off the same balcony that the horned man had fallen over.

Jane came out then and moved to Frigga, Alice following her, once she'd managed to pull herself up.

"Put presur eon ti." Alice said, her own hands moving to cover Frigga's wound. It hadn't gone too deep but the bleeding didn't stop, he had aimed for the heart and come pretty close to it. "Shit I think that blade was poisoned." She said even as the blood came in gushing spurts through her fingers.

Odin walked in and found them like that, his steps slowing down and Alice was angered.

"She isn't dead yet, get the damn healers!" And suddenly Odin's old bones started moving rather quickly. Without another word he knelt in front of Frigga and said some words under his breath that they didn't understand and they watched as the blood began slowing down, flowing more sluggishly and eventually stopped. Odin picked her up and practically ran out the room, Thor following close behind.

"Alice this is just...Shit." Jane never cursed. It was a habit ingrained in her by their father one that had never taken with Alice but Jane never cursed.

"Yeah, war usually is. And the political machinations before it are even worse." Alice turned to Jane. "We'll have to be more careful. If people find out that you're the reason why Malekith came here, there's going to be hell. I guess having the Aether in you is a good thing for now, Odin can't do anything too ri-"

"You've got blood on your hands."

"You're in shock."

"Well yeah I," Jane was staring at her hands in horror. "Alice please wash it off."

"I'm not leaving you alone right now besides I don't know where to go and right now people have different priorities than helping the mortal girls out." Alice said harshly before sighing. "I'll wipe it off with tissues if it makes you that uncomfortable."

"Why are you so okay with this all?"

"I told you I work for SHIELD. This is strange but not really that strange for me."

"How did that happen?"

Alice was silent for a few minutes still engrossed in wiping the blood off. Only when she was picking the dried flakes off the underside of her nails did she start talking. "When I started modelling, I got hired for parties. It happens often, models are hired to mingle and pretty up the guest list. One time I was 'invited' to a party of an arms dealer. It was surreal, we were just studying his case for a class at law school and then I was at a party of his. We were actually doing a project on how one single piece of key evidence being tainted had dismantled the whole case that the DA was building against him. And so I was watching him pretty closely the whole time. One minute he was chatting up a pretty redhead then the next he was being hauled off for what his handlers said was alcohol poisoning. I didn't believe it, I mean it was pretty believable but also quite weird. He'd bought off people and had others killed, gotten some innocent man to confess to a crime that _he'd_ committed and yet somehow he was getting alcohol poisoning? Too strange. So I began looking into it and that's when SHIELD found me. The redhead showed up in my apartment and said that I could be a valuable asset if I decided to join them. And I did."

"But why? Did they force you, is that it?"

Alice shrugged. "I don't know it was just...I got tired. If I continued on my track I would be that lawyer, I'd be that person waiting for someone else to collect evidence, I'd be preparing statements, I'd be interviewing people, I wouldn't really be doing anything. Between being the DA who lost the case and the assassin who killed the arms dealer, I'd rather be the assassin. Besides, being sneaky and oddly violent isn't really much of a stretch is it?"

"I guess not." Jane sighed leaning against Alice's side and they curled their arms around each other. "When did life get so complicated?"

"Adulthood. That's when everything goes wrong. Well that and high school."

"I guess." Jane paused. "You know Thor told me stuff about his brother when he was on Earth those two years ago. From those stories it would seem like they were best friends and then suddenly Loki sent a weird robot thing to kill Thor."

"Where are you going with this?"

"I just wonder if we'll end up like them. If we'll hate each other one day."

Alice clucked her tongue. "Jane, Jane, Jane that's never going to happen."

"Yeah?"

"We're girls. If we were going to hate each other it would have been when we were going through puberty and sharing a bathroom."

Jane laughed and held Alice a bit tighter. That was her baby sister, always making people laugh. It was her defence mechanism but in times like these, it was the only thing keeping them sane.

"Do people really fight over bathroom time?"

"Apparently. In Tokyo I shared a house with four other models and there were catfights over body gels being stolen. Hair extensions were ripped off, it was ugly."

"Really?"

"Yeah. And there I was sniffing myself to make sure I'd actually taken a bath in the last two days."

"I don't remember any bath I've taken either."

"Right?!"

"Am I interrupting something?" Thor's voice said and they realised he'd been there for quite some time just listening in on them.

"Yes." Alice said.

"No." Jane said along with her.

"Have you been there the whole time?"

"No I just got here a few minutes ago."

"And you managed to sneak up on us. I'm impressed."

"How's your mother?"

Thor's face fell. "Not so well. The healers have managed to delay the poison spreading through her but it would take every single one of them working on her for days to save her and with many guards injured and many dead as well, we can't afford to do that. They don't think she'll make it past a day or so."

"Oh dear."

"I must leave soon, we are still working on our defences but I thought I should at least see that you were okay since your run in with Malekith."

"We're fine."

"You're Vikings. Does that mean you do the boat ritual for the dead?"

"Yes, our dead are placed in boats along with their prized possessions and set to sail off the edge of Asgard. Archers send flaming arrows to the boats that set them on fire while the magic users send glowing lights into the night sky, symbolising the transience of life to afterlife."

"That sounds poetic."

"Are the customs different on Midgard?"

"Yes. Depending upon what religion you belong to your rites are different."

"Yeah, the one that Jane and I belong too believes in sticking our dead into wooden boxes and burying them, placing a stone marker to mark where they are so if you need to lay flowers you don't get confused as to which dead person you're leaving them for."

"Alice!"

"It's true."

"Some of them cremate the dead."

"Yeah that too. Personally I'm an organ donor so my parts will be cut out for use for some other soul and the rest of me will probably be disposed of as biological waste."

"They're dead because of me. Because I went looking for an Einstein-Rosen bridge. It's my fault."

"Not really. If not you it would have been one of those kids and Asgard wouldn't even have realised that because Heimdall wasn't keeping an eye on every naughty eleven year old in the world. If anything, by you being the one that the Aether attached itself to, we bought ourselves some time. And these soldiers have been dying quite a lot because of rebellions in other worlds."

"How did you know that?" Thor asked and Alice shrugged.

"I was listening to some people talking. It's ironic that in destroying the Bifrost to save Jotunheim you pretty much condemned a lot of other worlds to war because without Asgardians there to stop them, the bandits and rebel soldiers were pillaging and burning villages over an extensive period."

"...I did not think of that."

"Yes and Odin still wants you to rule. I've met people who're blind that aren't as blind as that guy."

"But still, if it wasn't for me...I just wish I could do something."

"Well maybe you can."

That night when the boats made their way over the edge, a small little paper lantern, clearly Midgardian, set off by the two humans in their midst joined the light floating away sky.


End file.
